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Good morning.
New to the list and new to Cavaliers. I have been reading about Cavaliers for about four years and knew that when the time came for me to get a new dog I wanted to find a Cavalier. Last summer my 12 yo Aussie died. In December I was just looking at pictures at our local humane society and discovered a Cavalier puppy, 12 weeks old. I was beyond amazed and went through the process to adopt her immediately. A man had purchased her mother to raise and sell puppies. When (at 18 mos) she was unable to deliver her babies, he refused to pay for the C-section and relinquished her to the humane society. Two puppies died and two lived. The two puppies and the mom were eventually available for adoption. She is exactly every good thing I have read about Cavliers and much more. I have had dogs all my life, but never one so sweet and devoted as her; so eager to please me. If I sit down, she is immediately on my lap. If she can't be on my lap, she finds a comfortable place to lay and watches me. She is also playful and spunky.

Just this week a friend told me about CM/SM. I have been researching it the last few days. It is so scary. She will be six months old in two weeks. I find myself watching her intently for any signs and worrying if she scratches her ear. I am wondering about getting health insurance for her. I have never done that and do not know what to look for in a good policy. I was wondering if that had been discussed here or if anyone can give me any pointers.

In a couple of years I had hoped to buy another Cavalier, but now I do not know. Not only does the CM/SM scare me, but I have visited so many breeder websites over the years and not one of them said anything about following a breeding program to reduce the incidence of CM/SM.

I have learned a lot from the Cavalier Talk website. Thank you to the person who created this forum and the website.
Carly

Welcome. What is your little girls name? Also welcome to the world of owning a cavalier...........its all risk vs reward,and you spend a lot of time wondering "am I worrying too much or not enough". I would say its a MUST that you get a health insurance plan NOW like next week do not wait. If you tell us where you live UK, US etc. I'm sure we can share what insurance we have on our cavaliers.
I live in the US and have Pet Plan for Fletcher. You need to make sure any policy covers hereditary/genetic conditions, for a complete list in more info in all the hereditary/genetic conditions check out http://www.cavalierhealth.com/ the owner of that site is a Cavalier Talk user too. I myself had 100 questions about these so maybe you can go back and search my posts. Education is key to being a great cavalier parent so your on the "right" track.

Melissa
"If you don't own a dog, at least one, there is not necessarily anything wrong with you, but there may be something wrong with your life."
-Roger Caras

Thank you for the welcome and the link. My puppy's name is Carly. I just took her name as an ID. The foster mom had named her Carlotta and we just shortened it. I live in the US. I will check out Pet Plan insurance. I am guessing that it is not just the exams that are expensive, but the ongoing meds if your dog is diagnosed with SM or the heart valve issue. Is that correct? I haven't read anything about what to expect the med costs to be.